Gilded Age Publishing Heir Puts Today's Rich Boys to Shame

Every week on VF.com, filmmaker Jamie Johnson offers a glimpse into the secret lives of the super-rich.

Included on my reading list this summer are a couple of biographies about the Gilded Age’s legendary newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett Jr. He was a fabulously rich media mogul who inherited the crown jewel of his family’s fortune: a prominent paper called the New York Herald. Stories about him involve everything from late-night streaking while steering his team of trotters through open city streets to urinating in the fireplace at a gathering, in celebration of his engagement to a glamorous patrician debutante.

The more I learn about the man, the more fascinated I become with his scandalous life and the mythology he left behind. Today’s elite billionaires are painfully dull by comparison. It’s hard to imagine any of the individuals on Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans raising the bar on Bennett’s irreverent behavior. Not even tales of the recently deceased A&P heir Huntington Hartford, who famously spent record-breaking sums in the most decadent fashion, rival those of the roguish publisher.

For anyone who enjoys reading about affluent culture and the eccentric personalities it produces, I strongly suggest tracking down a biography of James Gordon Bennett Jr. (who was called Gordon Bennett to distinguish him from his father, James Gordon Bennett Sr.). Whether you are learning about his colorful legacy for the first time or simply revisiting a familiar history of the flamboyant tycoon’s outlandish exploits, the material never fails to entertain, and it’s perfect to pack up and bring along on August holiday travels.

Among Gordon Bennett’s many talents was his gift for high-stakes yacht racing. His extreme wealth enabled him to build specially designed boats at an early age, and he used the opportunity to join better-established sailors at regattas in New York and Newport. Some say that his skills as a novice skipper were so promising that at the tender age of 16 he became the youngest man ever to join the New York Yacht Club. No small distinction for a gentleman passionate about sailing.

Only a decade later, he was participating in more ambitious races, including daunting Trans-Atlantic challenges that on occasion left crew members to sink to their deaths in the open ocean. In one of these races, six men on a vessel owned by Gordon Bennett’s opponent were washed overboard and never seen again.

The episode that places Bennett urinating in a fireplace actually inspired a duel. After drinking himself to near oblivion and stumbling into what I’ve read was his fiancé’s family’s home, he whipped out his equipment and watered down the flames of his marriage to be. Angered by the stunt, a relative of his fiancé officially challenged Bennett to a fight. Fortunately, no one died in the incident, but the engagement was a casualty. It caused quite a stir within polite society and left Bennett with further injury to his reputation.

Another time, as payment for a lost bet, he rode his polo pony into the formal dining room of an esteemed Newport social club. The organization’s members punished him by denying him future access, which he circumnavigated by building his own, larger, more extravagant club next door.

And then there’s Bennett’s underwriting of the memorable search by journalist Sir Henry Morton Stanley for the Scottish missionary David Livingstone. You know, the one that ended with the line, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

They don’t make them like Gordon Bennett anymore. You won’t want to miss out on his fabulous antics in what could otherwise be a pretty banal recession summer